There was no sound from the children below. Either blind fear or good sense had kept them from giving their position away.
Chap caught his opponent's front leg and bit down. A loud snap and a yelp announced the end of the fight, and Leesil felt one small moment of pride. Stout Chap had been running down undeads. Dealing with a mere wolf was only a matter of moments.
The wounded animal stumbled out the stable doors on three legs, moving as fast as it was able. Chap let it go and reached Leesil about the same time that Rose climbed down from the hay.
"Get below," Leesil whispered. "You have to hide with the others."
Rose didn't move. She wouldn't leave him.
"Listen to me-" he hissed in anger, but he didn't finish before darkness filled his head, and he dropped limp and unconscious.
When Magiere held Teesha's head up, she expected to see rage and thirst for vengeance color Rashed's face. With the growing flames between them, she anticipated the satisfaction of driving him to wild action.
At first, absolute incomprehension registered in his crystalline eyes-then horror-and finally something between fear and pain.
"Teesha?" he mouthed as a question, though Magiere could not hear his voice over the sound of the fire.
Magiere felt an unexpected and unwanted sensation of guilt, but swallowed it down.
"Here I am," she called, determined to finish what he had started. "Why don't you come take my head?"
He could not have heard her either, but at those words he cried out incoherently and came crashing through the window, the base of the wall below it giving way before his legs. Burning boards dropped around him, and he gripped his long sword as if it were the only thing that mattered.
Still Magiere felt nothing she expected. Sorrow danced around the edge of his cry, not rage.
"Coward!" he managed to yell before swinging so hard that Magiere dropped Teesha's head and jumped back instead of blocking. His attack now stirred the power and anger she longed for.
With Teesha, she had controlled that rage and how it affected her actions, and she believed she could have done so even now. But she didn't want to, and she let it take her, rushing through her body. The sharpness inside of her mouth was welcome, no longer unsettling. To destroy him, she would become him-one of his kind.
The common room had always felt large and open before, but standing inside the growing fire and forced to back away from Rashed, Magiere suddenly felt trapped in too small a space. His physical presence felt too close, too immediate.
Rashed positioned himself between her and the open wall, standing his ground, waiting. She hated him for the murdering monster that he was, but admired his strategy in the midst of all this madness. He wasn't going to let her out. Whether he killed her with a sword or forced her to burn in the fire didn't matter. Before long, the second floor would cave in.
If that was his plan, then let him try. This time, she charged.
Steel clanked on steel, and Magiere forgot Rashed's grief at seeing Teesha's severed head.
Every move he made was familiar, as if she could feel his intent before the action. They each swung and blocked and swung again. Somewhere in the back of her thoughts a voice whispered that if they didn't run from the tavern soon, they would both burn to death. Did that matter? It didn't seem to matter to him. No, and nothing mattered to her but cleaving Rashed's head from his body.
Heat from the inferno around them caused her to choke, and the flames grew hotter and higher. His blade nearly caught her shoulder as she gulped in scorching air. He jerked his sword up and left himself wide open while attempting to cleave her skull. Instead of opting for a sane, defensive move, she thrust upward, aiming for his stomach.
"You fools!" someone shrieked.
The unexpected cry startled both of them and each missed their blow. Even through the smoke and fire, Magiere clearly saw a horrible visage that disrupted her bloodlust.
Floating over Teesha's head was the ghost of a nearly beheaded man, his long yellow hair hanging from his tilted head. Magiere had thought nothing could shock her anymore, but even in her rage the bright hues of his open throat pulled her attention, flames flickering through his transparent body.
"You fools!" he repeated. His face exuded all the rage and venom she'd expected in Rashed's.
"Get away, Edwan," Rashed shouted over the fire. "Vengeance is beyond you."
"Vengeance?" the ghost answered in disbelief. "You murdered her. You and your pride. Can't either of you see what's happening? Did either of you want this?" He drifted down to kneel near Teesha's severed head, his face weeping, but without tears. "You slew my Teesha."
Magiere stumbled once. Nothing made sense. No action seemed correct. The heat inside her began to fade and, instead, she felt the bright flames around searing her flesh. Her leather armor smoldered in several places.
When she looked back to Rashed, she saw the tavern stairs behind him and realized they had maneuvered completely around each other. Her back was now to the opening in the front wall where he'd crashed through moments earlier.
Magiere backed up hesitantly.
"No!" Rashed shouted, flames reflecting off his hard crystal eyes.
An ear-splitting crack sounded overhead. Magiere's gaze turned up briefly. The upper floor began.to give way. The desire to survive won out.
She turned and dove through the jagged opening in the wall, shielding her face with one arm. Fresh air from the open street flooded inside her as she rolled once across the ground and came up to look back into the flames.
A heavy beam wider than his chest pinned Rashed to the floor, and he lay completely engulfed in flames, fighting to get up. His thrashing limbs were like waving branches of fire. Over the blaze's roar, she couldn't hear anything, and wondered if he was screaming.
The beheaded figure flitted about the room, in and out of the flames devouring Rashed. The ghost appeared to be laughing.
Magiere staggered back a few paces more and sank to the ground. She watched Rashed's writhing, burning form until he stopped moving. Then the entire upstairs floor caved in. Sparks flew like a thousand fireflies into the night air.
Aside from all the methods she had learned from villagers' folklore and legends, she thought burning an undead's body completely to ash was as good as any other way to destroy it.
Where was her earthen jar to trap his spirit now? Where were the peasants to sigh in relief? How brave, how very brave she was to have leaped away and watched her enemy become trapped under a flaming crossbeam. The topaz amulet around her neck glowed steadily.
A light brighter than the flames flashed beside her and the horrible visage of the beheaded man appeared close to her face. She cried out and fell backward.
"Over, over, over," the thing sang while floating in the air above her, its severed head close enough for her to see every minute detail. "Over, over, over, over…"
The light of him began to dim, and he faded until only the night and the flames of the tavern remained. Magiere half lay on the ground, numb inside as she watched the burning building for any sign of Rashed.
There was nothing but fire and smoke in the dark.
Chapter Twenty-one
"The first return of emotion fluttered inside Magiere when she saw Leesil open his eyes. He lay on the ground beside her, out in the street. There were fresh teeth marks on his left arm below the ones she'd given him two nights before. His face was pale, but he was breathing without too much discomfort that she could see. He blinked twice from the light of a torch stuck in the ground nearby.